This qualitative study investigated what factors kept teachers committed to teaching in one rural east Texas school district despite the perceived educational inequalities of rural districts compared to suburban and urban districts. When it comes to teacher retention, rural school leaders cite school environment and community lifestyle…

In 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) began exploratory data collection for the School Pension Survey (SPS). The SPS is a new data collection of elementary/secondary school teacher pension data collected at the school district level. The SPS was developed primarily in response to public demand for data on teacher and other…

Why is it that so many women seem to climb the administrative ladder leading to the superintendency frequently and with relative ease, but do not reach that top rung? Data to help address this question is presented here. These data are part of a larger research project completed in the fall of 2006. In addressing this question, an overview of the…

The purpose of the study was to examine the features of Texas's Alternative Route to Certification (ARC) programs in music education, the demographics and prior experiences of program completers, and the employment of ARC completers in K-12 public schools. Data were collected from the State Board of Educator Certification about demographics and…

The Teacher Compensation Survey (TCS) was a research and development effort by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to explore the possibility of developing an administrative records survey that would compile compensation and demographic data on all public school teachers in the nation. A pilot survey in 2007 collected data from…

Handwriting has historically played a significant role in the services provided by occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants working in schools. Reflecting on nearly three decades of school practice, an occupational therapy administrator considers how this niche developed and how it positions occupational therapy practitioners to…

Utilizing rich data on nearly 11,000 educators over 17 academic years in a highly diverse context, we examine the career paths of teachers to determine whether and when they transition into the principalship. We utilize a variety of event history analyses, including discrete-time hazard modeling, to determine how an individual's race, gender, and…

As state and federal policymakers continue to adopt more centralized policies, it is increasingly important to understand how policies, particularly those designed to enhance education for underserved students, are implemented locally. We employ a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design to investigate the implementation of one policy, that…

This study explores the relationships between gender, career ambition, and the emergence of executive leadership in the bureaucracy. In "Bureaucratic Ambition," Teodoro (2011) shows that public administration career paths shape individual ambition, political behavior, and policy innovation. But career systems are not neutral conduits of…

Increasingly, states and districts are combining student growth measures with rigorous, rubric-aligned teacher observations in constructing teacher evaluation measures. Although the student growth or value-added components of these measures have received much research and policy attention, the results of this study suggest that the data generated…

There is a debate on students' low science achievement in the United States, particularly among low income, African American students, and Latino students. An important part of the education community's response to low achievement generally and in science specifically has been the implementation of high stakes accountability policies. Because of…

This qualitative study seeks to create a better understanding of the work of school superintendents. This study was conducted using ethnographic techniques as a way to describe the practice of a Latino superintendent in a borderland community in south Texas. Guiding questions for this study were: What goes on in the workday life of a…

This report summarizes how school and district leaders and academic coaches in two Texas school districts used assessment and other types of data to assess the quality of teaching and learning, to coach and supervise teachers, and to guide management decisions. The report also describes how district and school leaders supported teachers' use of…

Guided by self-determination theory, this study investigated the extent to which factors of teachers' school-work environments predict their self-efficacy and intrinsic value for teaching. Participants were 217 mathematics teachers working in Texas public schools. Results indicated that principals' autonomy support positively predicted teachers'…

This case describes how a newly appointed superintendent implemented systematic changes across the school district to increase academic performance and keep schools open and operational. The district superintendent and leadership team were forced by the state educational system to promote rapid and drastic organizational and academic changes to…